No Longer the Last
by Consulting Angel
Summary: Doctor Who. A famous television show, right? Some really creative people, some amazing actors, and some fantastic special effects. That's all it is, though, isn't it? Think again. My name is Rebecca Jones, and this is my story.
1. Chapter 1

Doctor Who. A famous television show, right? Some really creative people, some amazing actors, and some fantastic special effects. That's all it is, though, isn't it?

Think again.

My name is Rebecca Jones, and this is my story.

* * *

"Did you hear that?" I ask, throwing the ball to Amy. It hits her glove with a satisfying _thwack_.

"Hear what?" she replies.

I shrug. "I just – never mind."

A phone beeps, and Amy runs over after a moment. "Hey, sorry, my mom wants me home for dinner. I guess we're going out somewhere or something." She grabs her bag from the base of the tree and takes two steps away, then stops. "Oh, I forgot! Can you give this back to Sara? I keep forgetting to get it back to her," she explains, handing me a small box.

"Yeah, sure," I answer. "Bye, then. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, bye!" Amy runs off toward the grove of trees hiding a shortcut to her house.

I turn the box over in my hands. "Well, then, what is it this time?" I pull the lid off the shoebox, revealing several Doctor Who DVDs. I roll my eyes. Why are they such Whovians? I mean, they only mention the show in every other conversation – if I'm lucky – and they spend hours arguing over whether Ten or Eleven is better, and then they go and start crying about some Rose girl! How did I get stuck with such nerds? "Ah, well," I sigh, closing the box and tucking it in my bag. I'll be seeing Sara this evening at the library for our research paper; I figure I can get it back to her then.

As I walk down the street back home, I hear the strange noise again – closer, this time. "What is it?" I exclaim, turning around and looking for something – anything – out of place. Nothing. I try to forget about it and keep walking, but I keep hearing the stupid noise! Finally, when I reach the corner next to the bakery, I hear it again, and it just sounds so close! I turn around again, carefully searching every corner. I catch a glimpse of a flashing light in an alley, behind the bakery.

"No," I tell myself. "Don't do it. Don't." But, curiosity gets the best of me, and I start walking towards the alley. It really shouldn't be creepy at all – it's four in the afternoon, and there's not a cloud in the sky – and I can't help but wonder…

Two more steps and I'm there. It definitely shouldn't be creepy, not at all – so why am I so hesitant to take those two steps? "Okay. One, two… Three." I step into the alley and I laugh.

"Whose idea of a joke was this, then?" I call. "Sara? Amy?" For there, in front of me, sits a blue box labeled "Police Public Call Box". I may not watch the show, but I have heard enough conversations to know that this is part of it. "Hello? Anyone? I get the joke, you can come out now."

And David Tennant steps out of the box. "Oh, hello!" _Thud._

I wake up rubbing my head. "What? I – where – oh! Who are you?" I'm sitting in a large room, on the stairs of a raised platform, and in the middle of this platform is a great big console_._ And David Tennant is standing in front of me, wearing a dark shirt and a blue suit – and red sneakers. "Er – what happened?"

He starts laughing to himself. "I've gotten a lot of reactions, but never has anyone _fainted_ when they saw me. Never! Well, suppose there's a first for everything." He stops for a moment, pulls me to my feet. "You'll be fine, though. No major damage. I'm the Doctor, by the way."

I laugh. I walk around the room and laugh.

"What?" he asks. "What's so funny?"

I have to sit down again in order to stop laughing. "Right, then. So where are the cameras? How much are they paying you, Mr. Tennant?"

"What?"

"You're filming. That must be it. You are filming for the next episode and you're looking for some American's honest reactions to "The Doctor"," I say, using my fingers for air quotes. "Well, here's mine. HA! Very funny. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be off. I step towards a door and fling it open, fully intending to walk back home.

But I don't.

In front of me, there is nothing. Around me, there are stars. Lots and lots of stars. And asteroids. And Earth is so far away below us.

"Right, then. What's this? Special effects?" I ask, not taking a step back. "So if I do _this_," I say, stepping one foot off the floor and sticking it out into empty space, "I don't fall at all." I'm about to actually step off when he grabs me.

"Yeah, I really wouldn't do that if I were you." He pulls me back in and closes the door. "Now, what were you saying about all the cameras? And who is David Tennant?"

"You're David Tennant, stupid," I say, poking him in the chest. "And _this_," I add, gesturing all around us, "is a television set."

Tennant just gives me this really blank look, like, "What are you talking about?"

"You and I," I answer, pointing to help him out, "are standing on a constructed set for a science-fiction TV show called Doctor Who. Okay?"

"Oh, you made a show about me! Well, I must say, I am flattered," he says, straightening his suit, "but we haven't got time for flattery."

I throw my hands in the air. "Can I go home now?"

He straightens up from bending over the console in the center of the room. "I'm sorry, I really am, but you can't go home."

"Why not?"

He lets out a little laugh again. "Well, you see… I showed up in that alley because there was a, um – well, a shape-changing, invisible alien there."

"Right. So what has that got to do with me?"

Another laugh. "Can we start over? I'm the Doctor. I am a nine hundred year old Time Lord from Gallifrey. I am flattered that you have created a show about me, but I really don't have time for flattery because killer aliens are after me. And you are?"

"Rebecca Jones. Now can you please call your producer or director or someone and tell them I AM GOING HOME NOW!"

He holds his hand up in surrender. "Alright, alright. Where am I headed?"

"The same place you were before."

"Right. Okay." He starts messing with levers and buttons on his little console. I guess it's the controls or something? "Oh, no. No, no, no! Come on, not now!"

"What?" I ask, not even looking up.

He groans. "She's stuck in orbit – we're orbiting your moon."

"Blue lever."

"Oh, of course, thanks." A brief pause. "Wait – what?"

"What?" I look up at him.

He looks from me to the console and back again. "How did you – that's impossible!"

"What – impossible that I should know how to fly a TARDIS?" Wait – what's a TARDIS? How_ do_ I know how to fly it?

"And now you're using an accent. Right. I'm getting you home."

This time, I put my hands up in surrender. "Alright, take me home. And I'm not using an accent!"

"Yes, you are." He starts to push buttons and pull levers again.

I walk up to the console. "No, I'm not." I pull a lever, twist a knob.

"Yes, you – what are you doing!" he exclaims.

"I'm flying a TARDIS. Oh, it's been far too long!" Suddenly, all these memories are rushing back, flooding my head. A sea of red grass covering my home planet. Gallifrey – such a beautiful name for a beautiful place. Learning how to fly a TARDIS with my parents eight hundred years ago, looking into all of time and space, all that is and was and will be...

I collapse onto a chair. "Doctor?"

He stops everything – we're still drifting through space – and sits next to me. "What is it? What's happening?"

"I – I – oh!" I stand up, throwing my arms out. Energy rushes up out of me, flying through my hands and my head. The Doctor just sits there, stunned.

"I – Rebecca – what? What are you doing?"

Everything suddenly stops. "Doctor – I've regenerated."


	2. Chapter 2

I take a minute to appraise my new body. Slim, tall, long legs. Long brown hair falling halfway down my back. I'm now five-foot-three – a nice change from before. My jeans are too short, though, and the shirt is a little too big. "Doctor?" I call behind me. "You wouldn't happen to have a wardrobe in here, would you?"

I can hear disbelief in his voice. "What? Um, yeah – third door on the left down that hall."

He pulls himself to his feet and brushes himself off. I return a moment later in a new pair of straight-legged dark wash jeans and a button-down short-sleeve shirt with thin sky blue stripes on white. I'm carrying a pair of sneakers to put on later, but I prefer going barefoot. "Hello, Doctor. Something wrong?"

"I – you just – Rebecca?" he stammers. "What just happened?"

I laugh. "Oh, Doctor, it's been far too long! Six hundred years now?"

"Since what? You're not saying you're six hundred years old!"

"Oh, please, don't be ridiculous. I'm eight hundred seventy three."

He's recovered a bit by now – enough to take control, anyway. "You – sit down. Start talking. We are not going _anywhere_ until you've explained yourself."

I hold my hands up in mock surrender. "All right, all right. I am an eight hundred seventy three year old Time Lord from Gallifrey."

"But you were on Earth! You haven't got a TARDIS or anything – that's impossible!"

"Stop interrupting, Doctor. About six hundred years ago a small group of us decided to travel to Earth and stay a while, see how they progressed normally and whatnot. We ended up arriving in London around 1415 AD. We made a pact not to use a TARDIS unless our lives depended on it until 1500 AD or so."

"Why would anyone want to do that? Watch time pass… normally? It's so slow!"

"Honestly, Doctor! It was a – an experiment, you could say. Almost like a vacation from aliens and beasts that threaten time and space. Anyway, 1500 came. We all packed up, opening our TARDISes for the first time in eighty-five years. There were three of them for a dozen of us to share. I was meant to be with three others, but they were helping a younger group get settled in for the journey back. Something – something went wrong and – I'm sorry, Doctor, it's just…" I take a deep breath and continue. "They left. Their TARDIS left and I was stuck. I knew how to fly her, but it wouldn't work. She wasn't dead, just – not responding. I don't know. All I knew was that I was alone, stranded on Earth until someone could help me fix her." I look up. He's standing against the console with his head down. I wipe my eyes. "But no one came. I waited, moving around so I wouldn't have to explain myself. Centuries passed, and I kept waiting, hoping someone would come back for me. But they never did." I'm crying now, but I have to finish my story. "Around World War I, someone found me where I was hiding in the woods. I still looked like I was twenty. They thought I had lost someone in the war or something, so they took me in, brought me to someone, started caring for me. I couldn't just go on not aging, and I couldn't disappear. I guess I grew attached to them. I don't know what happened next, or how, but something changed. I started aging. In 1995, I had grown old – so very old, physically, and my body gave out. I regenerated, sort of – I had a new body, but I was still growing. I had regenerated as a little baby. A family found me, took me in, raised me. With everything that was happening, I started to forget. I started to become human. One of my hearts stopped. I began to forget everything I had learned in my eight hundred years. And then I found you." I look up, smile at him, tears streaming down my face. "Being so near another Time Lord, and the energy of the TARDIS – it brought me back. I regenerated again – that's what you saw there – and I'm Time Lord again. I've got two hearts. I can remember everything that's happened since I was born nearly nine hundred years ago. So… Thank you, Doctor, for bringing me back."

He looks at me. He's starting to cry now. "Oh, Rebecca. I – I'm so sorry." He reaches out, embracing me. "No one should have to go through that." I'm almost sobbing, so sad and happy and full of sorrow and hope at the same time.

"What happened, Doctor?" I ask, not lifting my head from his shoulder. "Why didn't they come back?"

"There was – there was a war. A great war. The last Great Time War. And – oh, I'm so sorry. I really am. But I – I had to." Now he's crying. "I killed them. The Daleks, they're gone, too. But so are the Time Lords. I had to kill them all." He holds me out, looks me in the eye. "I'm so sorry, Rebecca. It was the only way. They all wanted to – to control the universe and time and space and everything in between. But I couldn't let that happen."

We both just sort of stand there for a minute, comforting each other. Why must life be so difficult? Finally, he speaks.

"Just look at us," he says, smiling through tears. "The last Time Lords in the universe. Who would've thought, right?" I look at him and can't help but laugh. He's right, though. The two of us, completely alone no matter how may people are with us. It's so weird, I guess, to think that neither of us would've imagined this. Being the last one, all alone, and then having your world turn around in minutes when you realize you aren't the last. And there we are. Laughing with tears in our eyes, standing together, in the middle of a bigger-on-the-inside TARDIS.

"Well, Doctor," I start. "There you have it. My story. So what's yours – besides the, uh …"

He nods, knowing what I want to say without actually saying it. "Me? Nothing interesting, really. Well, a little interesting. Different." He grins. "I stole her and ran away," he says, gesturing to the TARDIS. "And I've been running ever since."

"All alone?"

"No. Well, not always. Sometimes people join me, but then… they have to go. It's all right, though. I like being on my own."

"Stop lying, Doctor. No one likes being on their own." I search his eyes for something else, something that I know must be in there. I sigh. "Anyway, what about this TV show? Doctor Who – why?"

He grins again. He looks so happy, like a kid in – well, in a time machine with the universe ahead of him. "I'm really not sure where it came from. It was a little too late when I found out about it. That's why they stopped filming, actually – I sort of, I don't know, _encouraged_ them to stop. I hadn't realized how well-liked the show was. So, 2005, I come back, tell them they can keep going – with a few rules. One: I choose the actors. Two: I get final veto power on all ideas regarding the show. Yeah, I think that's it."

I laugh. "So you're controlling the show?"

"What? Oh, no, of course not – well, a bit, if that's what you're going to call it."

"Well, then. Suppose we get going?" I suggest, stepping towards the controls.

He joins me. "Where to? Oh, it's been so long since I've had help. So very, very long!"

We start preparing her for departure. "Appalapachia?"

"Appalapachia!" he exclaims, throwing a lever. We hold on to either side of the console as she departs and starts flying through the vortex. He gets this wild look in his eyes, and I understand it completely. To be with another Time Lord, someone who can understand you and help you – it's just fantastic! And, for the first time in centuries, I get to feel that adrenaline, that exhilaration of flying through time and space with a universe ahead of you! All too soon, though, she lands.

"We've landed," I state.

"So we have."

"What do you reckon's out there?"

"No idea – isn't it great?"

"What about the atmospheric readings?"

"Oh, come on - no one actually uses those anymore! Let's go have us an adventure!" We stride to the doors, throwing them open. "Rebecca, welcome to Appalapachia!"

But it certainly doesn't look like Appalapachia. A Cyberman and a Dalek stand side by side.

"You will be deleted!"

"Exterminate!"

"Doctor?" I whisper. "Where are we?"

"No idea," he replies, "but I don't think it's Appalapachia."


	3. Chapter 3

"You will follow us," the Dalek states in its electronic voice.

I lean over towards the Doctor. "Right, then – what's the plan?" I whisper.

"I was about to ask you the same," he answers.

"Okay." I straighten up and hold my hands up in surrender. "We come in peace. We mean you no – "

The Doctor cuts me off. "Really, don't do that. Ever." He clears his throat. "According to section fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation, I ask you to lower your weapons and take us to your leader."

"You will follow us," the Dalek repeats.

The Doctor shrugs. "All right, then. No Shadow Proclamation."

I roll my eyes at him. "Take me to your leader? Really?"

"Someday, that's going to work…"

We follow the two through the building we've landed in. It's three stories tall and open inside, like an aircraft hanger or army base. After a few minutes we come to a door. The Dalek puts its arm on a keypad, entering a code or something, and the door opens. Through this door are alternating lines of Daleks and Cybermen, and they all look ready to kill. We pass through another door at the end of this room and the Dalek stops us.

"You will stay here until we can change you," the Cyberman explains. The two aliens turn around and lock the door behind us, leaving us in the dark.

I throw my hands up. "Oh, great! This is just fantastic! Come on Doctor, nothing more exciting than being locked up in a great big Dalek-Cyberman base, right? Of course not! So let's just sit here in the dark and wait to – "

"Shush!"

" – be exterminated or deleted or whatever and – "

"Shut up!"

" – we'll just die here, I guess, alone and – "

He clamps a hand over my mouth. "Do you EVER stop talking?"

"What?" I try to ask. "Get off!" He doesn't move his hand.

"Shut up and listen!" There's a hollow _tick, tick, tick, tick_ coming from across the room. "And I don't think that's a clock," he whispers in my ear.

I fight his hand off my mouth. "Then what is it?" I angrily whisper back. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. It makes a sort of whirring noise and lights up green. And it turns the lights on. "And what is that?"

"Sonic screwdriver. Oh, look, it's my little clock man!"

"What?"

"Over there," he says, pointing, with his little sonic screwdriver. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

I follow his line of sight. A six foot tall glass robot, controlled by parts of a clock that make it _tick, tick, tick, _stands a few feet away. "Right. Brilliant. Clock man?"

"Well, what else do you want me to call it? It never gave its name." He starts tinkering around with something on the wall.

I nod. "So what is this, some sort of "Evil Robot Aliens Unite" program?"

"Come on, you of all people should know! One, Daleks aren't robots; there's a living creature inside that suit of armor. Two, Cybermen are not officially robots, at least not yet, because they have a human brain inside them. B – no, wait – three, Daleks and Cybermen definitely should _not_ be uniting."

"Why not?"

"Oh, come on!" he groans. "Didn't you ever see Doomsday?" I shake my head. "Of course not," he sighs.

I start rubbing the sides of my head and close my eyes. "First question: can your little 'clock man' kill us?"

He looks up. "No. Well, it might. Well, it can. That is, it can, and I seriously hope it won't. So… yes?"

"Brilliant. I don't like it. Second question: how do we get out of here?"

He goes back to his tinkering. "I'm working on it. Here, hold these, and do not let them touch!" He hands me two wires, a red and a blue.

"Third question: do you have _any_ idea what you're doing, Doctor?"

"Do you want an honest answer, or the answer that I give to people when I need to make them feel safe?" I glare at him and he sighs, looks into my eyes. "No, I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing, but we are going to get out of here."

"Right, then, Doctor. So, just to recap: I am on some foreign planet that is definitely _not_ Appalappachia, and is inhabited by hostile aliens that will most likely kill us, with the first Time Lord I've seen in centuries and he has no idea what he's doing."

"Oh, you're cheerful."

"Well, what do you expect?"

"Oh, shut up and give me the blue wire." I hand it to him and he sonics it with his little sonic screwdriver. "And now the red." He sonics that one, too. He grins at me and then sonics the whole thing one more time. Much to my relief, the doors slide open. "Oh! That's nice." He pockets his sonic screwdriver and holds our his arm. "Shall we?"

I brush past him. "Honestly, Doctor, we're not going to the queen's ball. Hurry up."

He gives me this look and follows. "You're no fun," he grumbles, zapping the door shut.

"Whatever. Which way to the TARDIS?" I ask, looking around the corridor.

He grabs my shoulder. "Come on, now, you don't honestly think I'm leaving? Why would the Daleks and Cybermen form an alliance, Rebecca?"

"Because they're bored? They feel weak? I don't know, does it really matter?"

"No, no, think! Daleks kill everything they see. Cybermen kill everything that's different. So why would they be helping each other? Unless…" He pulls out his sonic screwdriver again.

"What are you doing now?" I sigh.

"Scanning for a power source. Contained in its own room, I would imagine. I mean, something has got to be controlling them, and it must be something with enough electrical power to kill them all with the touch of a button. It must be huge!"

I turn around, about to start walking away without him, when I see where we are. "Unless they're not actually Cybermen and Daleks." The Doctor turns and looks at me like I've grown a second head and gone completely mad, then sees what I saw.

"Oh. Oh! Rebecca, you're brilliant!"

We are standing on a catwalk thirty feet above the floor of a factory producing metal parts for metal men. And there, at the back of the factory, you can see the final product: replicas of Daleks and Cybermen. They could easily fool anyone into thinking it's the real thing – even an experienced man like the Doctor.

"Why would anyone want to do that, Doctor – raise an army of fake Daleks and Cybermen?"

"No idea," he starts, "but I've got a feeling we're about to find out."


	4. Chapter 4

Half a dozen Daleks and half a dozen Cybermen have cornered us, gotten us backed up against the glass wall. "You don't suppose the weapons are fake, too?" I ask. He's about to answer, but a quick laser from a Dalek answers for him. "Course not."

The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver again. "If they're robots, though, then they can be reprogramed." I just sit back and hope whatever crazy idea he's come up with now works. "Right, then, here we are. Who is your master, who built you?" he asks them.

The Daleks have all lowered their guns and one of them slides forward two feet. "He is not to be spoken of."

"Oh, so it's a he? What's his name?"

"We were built by the one who is most feared. He has promised us power and freedom."

"But you're robots – you don't need freedom, you just follow orders."

The Dalek is halfway through another round of "He is good and feared" when I cut it off. "Oi! Metalhead! Take us to him."

It turns towards me. "She is strong. He would like her. She will follow us."

The Doctor steps between me and the Dalek-bot. "Not without me, she won't."

It raises its guns. "You will be exterminated!"

The Doctor just laughs and holds his sonic screwdriver out for all to see. "Nice try, but no. Lead the way, robots! Allons-y!"

The Dalek-bots and Cyber-bots seem very upset to find that he has disabled all their weapons, and they are left with no choice but to agree. They lead us down the hall and through seven or eight more rooms where robots are waiting for orders. Eventually, we come to a large door, like that of a bank vault. Three Cyber-bots and three Dalek-bots are needed to open this door. They each enter a sort of code or something and you can hear cylinders dropping as the door unlocks. _Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._ The heavy door slowly opens inwards towards the room.

"Our master awaits," one of the Cyber-bots announces.

I'm getting a little nervous and the Doctor puts a hand on my shoulder. "Just act like you own the place and, uh, hope no one sees through it!"

We walk into the room together. There's a large desk off to one side, and a fancy executive office chair behind it. The room looks normal enough, but I'm willing to bet that with the door we just saw, there's a foot of steel behind those walls. A man is standing behind the desk, looking through a book, with his back to us.

"Hello," says the Doctor. The man turns around. "Oh. It's you."

"Hello, Doctor," he says with an American accent. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

I stand there, slightly confused for a moment. "Sorry, do you two know each other?"

The Doctor answers me without turning from the man. "Rebecca, I'd like you to meet Captain Jack Harkness. Captain, this is Rebecca. She's… like me."

Captain Jack sort of laughs. "Oh, so she's a Time Lord? Or would it be Time Lady – I don't know, what do you call a female Time Lord? The opposite of lord is lady, so that would make sense. Or is Time Lord the name of the race, and your gender is independent of that?"

"Question time, Jack." The Doctor has taken another step towards the captain and he doesn't look too pleased. Jack just shrugs. "Right, then. Where are we?"

"Don't worry, Doctor. You didn't screw up too terribly – you're on Appalapachia, all right, but nowhere near your target date. It's New Year's Eve, the last day of the year nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, and you're just in time for the party."

"What does that even mean? And why are you leading robotic Daleks and Cybermen like they're part of an army?"

Jack tosses the book onto the desk and walks over so he's standing right in front of us. "Because they are an army, Doctor."

"An army against what?"

"As we speak, Doctor, thousands and thousands of ships are filling the skies all around us. Dalek ships. Cyberman ships. Their only intent is to destroy everything. They've been at war with each other for millennia, and they don't care how many civilians die." Jack steps back and hits a button on a remote. A holographic image appears between us and it shows the skies of this small corner of the universe full of warships. "So I'm raising an army to fight them."

I decide it's my turn to interrupt. "So, what, you're going to just send all these robots out to the war and, what, pretend they're spies or something? Load a bunch of robot Cybermen onto Dalek ships and Dalek robots onto Cyberman ships and confuse them all?"

Jack looks at me. "They were right. I do like her. Hi there, I'm Captain Jack Harkness."

"Stop flirting, Jack."

"I was saying hello!"

"Yeah, I heard. You've already been introduced, so what's your brilliant plan?"

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, that's actually not a bad idea, Rebecca, but I've already got a plan in action. When the universal clock hits midnight and we welcome another year, I figure the fighters might like a break from the fighting." Jack pauses and the Doctor takes this as his cue.

"So you're sending them in as fighters?"

Jack claps his hands together. "Yes! Exactly! In three and a half hours, every robotic Cyberman and Dalek will leave the factory and head to it's parent ship – the Dalek robots to the Dalek ships and the Cyberman robots to the Cyberman ships. Because the best way to kill a war machine is with – "

"Itself," the Doctor interrupts. "Oh, that is quite brilliant, actually. Send the robots to the battle, where they can take out all the Cybermen and Daleks."

And now I'm really confused. "Sorry, Doctor, but I thought those things were like war machines. They kill everything in sight, and they don't lose!"

Jack answers for the Doctor. "Yeah, but if the armies you send up there have all the same weapons and defenses as the ones they're fighting, then you've got more than a chance, you've got a great big shot at winning! If two Daleks face off, who's going to win? Or two Cybermen? They'll each have all the defenses needed to combat the offenses of the other. Now imagine a robot Dalek or Cyberman against a real one. The robot will have all the defenses they need as well as that one extra offense needed to take down the real one."

The Doctor is starting to look thrilled now. "Oh, Jack, you are brilliant!"

"Must be something to do with immortality, Doctor."

"Oh, shut up, you're not immortal."

"Try me. Rebecca, shoot me."

"I – what? No. I'm not going to shoot you!"

"Just do it," the Doctor sighs. "The sooner you do, the sooner he makes his point and we can get out of here."

I sigh, worrying, but if the Doctor says it's all right, then I suppose it is. I pick up the gun Jack's pointing at and fire. _Bang!_

"You missed. Honestly, Doctor, you're starting to slack off," Jack complains. "Try again. And don't miss!"

I do my best to ignore the fact that both of my hearts are telling me not to shoot him and I pull the gun up again. I point it at Jack's chest. _3, 2, 1,_ I tell myself. _Bang!_

Jack collapses onto the floor. Blood starts pouring out of the chest wound. He's not breathing. I run up to him. He's got no pulse. "Doctor, he's dead! He's dead! I killed him!"

The Doctor leans back against the wall. "Five, four, three, two…"

Jack takes a deep breath. I can hear the air rushing into his lungs. He sits up, says hello again, and jumps up from the floor. The hole in his chest starts sealing itself back up and the blood fades away. "There. See? Invincible."

"Yes, but invincible and immortal are two very different things, Jack. And you seem to have everything covered down here, so we'll just be off, then. Rebecca?"

I've backed myself against the wall. I point at Jack, then the gun, then the Doctor, then Jack again. "I – but – he – you were dead! And then you just – you – you're not!" I stammer.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Yes, Captain Jack Harkness, the man who refuses to die."

"But – how?" I ask, still amazed.

"Long story. Come on, let's leave the captain to his brilliant plan." I plant my feet. "All right, all right!" His eyes dart about for a minute. "Ros – someone – looked into the heart of the TARDIS – and don't ever do that, terrible idea – and she – they – became Bad Wolf and brought Jack back to life after he was killed by a Dalek during a battle on Satellite Five and he hasn't been able to die since. Satisfied?"

I nod. "Yeah, right, whatever." I follow the Doctor out of the room and back to the TARDIS. "We're not leaving, are we?"

"Nope," he says as he pushes the door open.

I finally get a chance to take a look at the TARDIS. A sign is posted on the police box, giving instructions for the person needing to use the box. "Doctor," I start, "it says "Pull to Open"."

"Yeah. So?"

"You push," I state, stepping inside.

He looks up. "I'm nine hundred and five years old. I can open my TARDIS the way I want to," he retorts before going back to whatever complex science project he was doing.

I walk over to the console. "What's that?"

"Part of the clock-man I found when the robots locked us up. I've been waiting to get my hands on one of these since Ro – for a while now. It's brilliant, really."

"How – how did you get it back here? Seem like it'd be hard to miss a man in a suit carrying a mechanical head in his hand."

"Pockets," he says. "They're bigger on the inside."

"And what are you trying to do now?"

"Well," he starts, sonic-ing the clock-man's head, "I want to blueprint it. If I can get it open, the TARDIS can do the rest."

"Why not just hook it up to the – the – oh, what's it called?" I start gesturing with my hands, trying to make a sort of box, hoping he figures out what I'm talking about.

"Oh!" he exclaims, snapping his fingers. "The – the – yeah, no idea what it's called. Somewhere back here…"

I follow him through one doorway, down a hall, past three more rooms, left at the intersection, and finally into a large room. "Wow," is all I can say. There's enough equipment in the room to put a dozen research labs out of business.

The Doctor turns the lights on. "Yeah, haven't been in here in ages! Oh, here we are." He picks up a large metal box and sets it on a table.

I start wandering around the room while he opens the box and hooks the head up to some wires. A great big telescope grabs my attention. I reach out to adjust the lens when the whole thing falls apart. _Crash!_ I cringe. "Sorry!"

"Rebecca!" he moans. "Really?"

"Sorry," I say again.

"It's fine… Just try not to break anything else."

I grin at him as I catch a glimpse of some photos from previous trips. "You never stop, do you? Running and traveling and exploring…" My voice trails off.

He looks up from the device. "No, I don't. It's hard work, saving the universe from all dangers single-handedly."

I continue walking around the room. "But you couldn't have always been alone. There must have been someone else. Doctor?"

He's looking down again. "Yeah. There was." He looks at the empty space behind me. "But she's gone now, just like the rest of them." He's trying to look dignified, but I can tell it hurts. He straightens up. "Brilliant!" he says. "Should be done in an hour or so." He starts to walk out of the room, pausing in the doorway to wait for me.

Walking around the telescope I've just disassembled - unintentionally, of course - I notice a jacket crumpled in a ball on the floor in the corner. Picking up the jacket, I can see what happened. He was angry and upset and he ran into the room, where he slumped down against the wall and cried. He buried his face in the jacket before setting it down, wishing he could forget. "What was her name, Doctor?"

He looks up at me. His eyes are drowning in sorrow. "Rose," he says. "Her name was Rose." He says no more before walking out of the room, and I follow silently.

I'm still holding the jacket when we reach the control room again. Afraid of triggering flashbacks that, from what I've seen, might cause the end of the universe, I fold it over the railing and stand in front of it. "You alright?" I ask. He's standing with his back to me, watching something on the small screen on the console.

He straightens up abruptly, as if I've just brought him back to reality. "Yeah, fine." He pushes the screen back and sits down, closes his eyes. I sigh and lean against the railing, wondering how hard it must be to be the Doctor.


	5. Chapter 5

Fifteen minutes later, the Doctor is still sitting there. I'm almost positive he's asleep by now, but he probably deserves some rest. Too afraid to wander very far on my own, I limit myself to the control room. I walk around the console and have to restrain myself from attempting to fly her. One, it's been way too long since I last touched the controls of a TARDIS. Two, I would probably end up crashing us into some sort of black hole or something equally dangerous. Three, it would likely wake him up and give him reason to be upset with me, and that's the last thing I need. So I look at it, admire it, and step away.

Pacing around the circumference of the room a few times, I start looking at the details. There's not much in the room – the design just makes it look cluttered. I do, however, find a map of New New York – well, New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York, if one wanted to be technical about it – as well as a great big ruff collar from Elizabethan England and a few books. Skimming through the stack of books, I see a signed copy of Great Expectations, a Gutenberg Bible, the ninety-eighth English Prime Minister's autobiography, and a journal. The journal is just a marble composition notebook, like the ones used in schools for English classes, and it's filled with pink writing. The cover is blank, but the inside cover is filled out where it asks for a name and address – Rose Tyler, London, England, Earth/Sol Three. I guess she figured she'd be easy enough to find once one located the city – and the right planet, of course! I know I really shouldn't, because it's an invasion of privacy and all that, but curiosity killed the cat, as they say, and I suppose it will also kill the Time Lord. I sit on the steps and start reading.

_It's been a few days, and already everything's so different. Three days ago, I was on Earth. I went to the shop, did my work, and was threatened by shop window dummies in the basement. A strange man saved me, blew up the shop, and turned up again later to kill an alien. (Aliens! In London! Course, that's normal now, I suppose.) Next day it's the year five billion and I'm watching the end of the world – with aliens – in a satellite. And now I'm drifting through space with an alien who looks human in a bigger-on-the-inside time machine called the TARDIS. It's not that I don't like any of this, but I hardly know him. And what about my mum? Or Mickey? I called my mum, but it was just so crazy because she had no idea I was thousands of miles away from Earth, five billion years in the future. I just really don't know what to think right now, but I know this much: my life isn't ever going to be the same._

Skimming through the rest of the book, I read about Daleks, a werewolf, Bad Wolf, a regeneration, a parallel universe, Cybermen. the Ood, a planet around a black hole, and a great battle of the Daleks, Cybermen, and humans. And there's quite a bit on this brilliant, fantastic man who isn't quite human but is absolutely amazing all the same… I'm doing my best to take everything in when I reach what appears to be the last entry. I look up for a minute to make sure I'm not missing anything important, and I read the entry.

_Here we go. The last battle of the Daleks, Cybermen, and humans (plus a Time Lord) is happening right here on Planet Earth, 2006 AD. I know it's dangerous, but it's for humanity. And I'm going to die. Don't know how or when, but I'm not going to get out of this alive. It's one of those things you just know, you know? _

_But you know what? If my death means the end of Daleks and the end of Cybermen, then it will be worth it. If it means the human race is safe, then it'll be worth it. So off we go. A fight to the death._

That's all that's written. I search the half of the book I haven't read yet, but it's all blank. I check again, and again, but it doesn't change. That's the last thing Rose Tyler ever wrote.

I can certainly guess what happened, but I want to know for sure. Asking the Doctor, though, would be a mistake – I know that much for certain. I haven't really got any other ideas, though – it's not like anyone else would know. I contemplate mind-reading for a moment, but even when I was young – for a Time Lord – I was uncomfortable with it. With a sigh, I close the journal and tuck it back where I found it, under the steps, hoping something will come to enlighten me.

Not a second after I straighten up and lean against the railing again do I hear, "So. What'd you think?" I look up, shocked, and see the Doctor standing next to the console. How long was he there?

"About what?" I ask, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Oh, don't insult me. I'm not that thick," he replies, walking over towards me. He leans against the railing. "You read Rose's journal." I look up at his face, hoping this hasn't upset him, but all I see is the face of a man stating a fact. He's indifferent, at least on the outside.

I look at my feet. "Yeah."

"And?"

"I've just got lots of questions."

"Like what?"

"Well, a question."

"What is it?"

I pause, unsure of how to word this. I don't want to cause him to do something rash. "What happened? There was a battle, but what happened after that? How did it end?" I turn towards him and see a faraway look start to cover his face. Like he's remembering something that was brilliant and fantastic, but at the same time sad.

"The planet was full of Daleks and Cybermen – they were taking over. I came up with this brilliant idea, though – opening the hole into the Void would suck them all in, because they had the "Void Stuff" on them. But so did we. I had it, Rose had it, everyone from the parallel universe had it. So I sent her back with them – back to the parallel universe with her mum and dad – so she would be safe. And – " He stops. He's starting to tear up again, and I can tell it's only a matter of time before he's crying. "I'm sorry, I though I could do it. Could you – " He motions for me to sit down on the chair, so I do. I know what's going to happen next, and it's an old practice I'm not particularly fond of – mostly because even simple things communicated through it can be difficult after six hundred years. He sits next to me, leans forward, and places his fingers on my temples, and I do the same to him. An instant later I can see it all – Rose returning to help him finish it, her losing her grip, Pete coming back to save her just in time, and the moment when the hole closes with Rose trapped on the other side, in the other universe. There's a moment of nothing, and then I see their last talk – at Bad Wolf Bay, with the holographic image. I see the way he never got to finish his sentence, and then I'm so glad he had me sit down because I feel like I would have collapsed with the pain. That's the thing – sharing memories like that doesn't just let the other person see what happened. They feel everything the giver felt, too – joy, love, grief, anger, sorrow, you name it. And right now, even as he sits back and drops his hands, I feel nothing but pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. And I'm drowning in it.

It takes me a few minutes to recover, but I do, and I look up to see the Doctor with his head in his hands. He's crying. Great. Exactly what I didn't want to have happen. After what I've seen and felt, trying to comfort him seems futile, so I figure the best thing to do is to leave him alone. I step outside to give him some space for a while, and consider going to talk to Captain Jack for a bit.

I'm back inside before the door closes.


	6. Chapter 6

"What is it? What happened?" he asks, standing up. His eyes are a little red, but there's no other signs of what he's been going through.

I lean against the doors. "Nothing."

"Tell me what it was!" he demands.

"Nothing!" I insist. He walks over towards me and crosses his arms. "Tell me."

"It's probably nothing – I'm just overreacting or something." He doesn't move. "Alright! I was going outside and… The robots were surrounding the TARDIS. But it's fine! Jack's probably just playing a joke or something," I continue when he pushes me aside to have a look. He swings the door open.

"EXTERMINATE!"

"EXTERMINATE!"

"DELETE!"

"DELETE!"

He stands there until a Dalek death ray hits the force field of the TARDIS, at which point he slams the door shut and turns around. "What were you saying? 'It's nothing'?"

"Okay, so it's something!" I follow him to the monitor, where he switches it to the TARDIS-cam, showing hundreds of robots surrounding the ship. The ray that was fired when the Doctor looked out wasn't a mistake – more and more follow. "Maybe now's a good time to leave?"

"Yeah." We circle the console, flipping levers and spinning dials. The now-familiar sound of the Doctor's TARDIS fills the air for a minute before everything stops.

I check the dials. "Where are we?"

"Jack's office." We walk towards the doors and step outside. Jack is crouched down in the corner with a gun in his hand. "Don't fire, it's only us," the Doctor calls, raising his arms in mock surrender.

Jack springs to his feet. "Where were you? It's been a week! My own robots have been attacking me for a week, Doctor!"

The Doctor gestures for Jack to calm down. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. And they're not your robots." Before Jack can respond, he continues. "They're being controlled by these." He pulls the clock-man's head out of his pocket.

"What? When did you…" I start to ask.

He smiles. "Time Lord."

"And how do you know?" I wonder.

"I don't, but it seems a pretty good guess right now. The technology in the robots is the same as the stuff in this." He points to the head. "So, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that they weren't ever your robots, Jack."

"What?" Jack exclaims in shock. "What?!"

The Doctor reaches around and scratches the back of his head. "Yeah… How long have you been here?"

"Six months."

"They've been here for a year. I don't know if they replaced your robots or if they were controlling them from the beginning, but it is what it is."

Jack throws his hands up. "So what's the plan, Doctor? Wait for them to back off? Or do we just sit here and wait be exterminated and deleted?"

The Doctor walks back towards the TARDIS and then turns towards us. "One: think of a brilliant idea that will get us all out of here and stop all the robots. Two: put that idea into action."

I roll my eyes. "You don't have a plan, do you?"

"Nope," he answers, pushing the TARDIS door open. A voice from outside the office announces our imminent deaths with "EXTERMINATE!" He calls to us from inside the TARDIS. "And now would probably be a good time to get out of here." I look at Jack and we run into the time machine together, Jack closing the doors behind us. Upon hearing the first pin drop in the door's lock, Jack nods to the Doctor. He flips the final switch and we dematerialize, disappearing completely just before the first robot makes it into the room.

We materialize a moment later just outside the building. The planet's surface looks like Christmas – it's literally a composition of white marble, green emeralds, and red rusted rock. A setting sun sets fire to the emerald and glistens on the marble. The last time I was here it was closer to being a forest planet – of course, that was some seven hundred years ago in my time stream and some seven thousand years ago for the planet. "It's beautiful," I whisper. "Different, but beautiful."

The Doctor looks around. "Yeah, it is." There's a brief moment of silence. "But, we haven't got time for that, so let's get moving."

"A plan, Doctor?" Jack smirks.

"Yup." He waves his sonic screwdriver around. "This way," he says, pointing due east.

Jack and I follow without hesitation. "Would you care to enlighten us with this plan of yours, Doctor?"

"One," he starts, jumping over a low fence, "we are going to walk into the main control room, where we will probably find several hostile clock-men. Two, we do our best to convince them not to kill us straightaway. Three, and this is assuming they refuse our offers, I temporarily stop them with this." He pulls a dozen vials of Multi-Grade Anti-Oil out of his pocket. "Won't last long, though. Four, I do something extremely clever and stop the robots."

"And five?" Jack asks.

"Haven't gotten that far yet."

We keep walking, and a door soon comes into view. The Doctor scans it one more time before announcing, "Yeah, this is it." He sonics the door and it unlocks with a _click_. "After you?" he asks, pulling the door open.

"_Merci, monsieur,_" I respond, stepping through. Jack and the Doctor are just a step behind me. We've stepped into a long corridor, lit with harsh florescent lights that cause us all to squint until we can adjust to the bright hallway. With a shrug, I lead our group down the hall.

After about three minutes of walking, we reach a fork in the road, so to speak. Two smaller hallways branch off the main one, giving us the options of going left, right or straight. "Which way do you reckon it is?" the Doctor asks, scanning the area.

"Left," I say confidently.

The two boys look at me. "You sure?" Jack asks.

I point to a sign indicating that the control rooms are to the left, the repair shop is to the right, and the factory is straight ahead. "Yeah."

"Show-off," the Doctor mutters, brushing past me.

"Oi! I heard that!" I call out. He just raises his hand in a "talk to the hand" gesture. "It's not my fault _some people_ aren't very observant." I get a bit of a laugh from Jack with this remark. Turning around to see him, I give him the same treatment. "You too, Captain!"

Jack jogs to catch up to the Doctor. "You might want to hurry, Doc. She's getting feisty."

"Shut up!" I shout as I, too, start jogging to catch up.

We soon reach an electronically locked door. "Four for you," the Doctor says, handing me a few vials of the Multi-Grade Anti-Oil, "four for you, and four for me," he finishes, handing Jack four vials. "Don't use it straightaway – there's a very slim chance I can come to an agreement with them. Not likely, though." A few seconds of sonic-ing and it clicks open. "Put the gun away, Jack." The captain gives the Doctor this look like that of a hurt child. "Stick to the bloody plan." Jack – somewhat reluctantly – holsters his gun. "Ready?" We both nod. "Right then." He swings the door open and we stride into a room inhabited by eight clock-men. They all turn from their posts upon hearing us enter. "Hello!" he says with that grin of his.

"You are the Doctor," one of them says. It's not asking a question, just stating a fact.

"Yup, that's me. And, just so there's no confusion, this is Jack, and this is Rebecca."

"You are hostile?" the same one says, more as a question this time.

The Doctor shrugs. "Depends. What's the plan here? Stick a bunch of deadly robots that just happen to look like deadly aliens on a planet in the middle of a war between aliens and then what? How does that help you?"

"We need the parts."

"So you're still stuck on that, are you? Take over the ships and use them as scrap."

"We need the parts."

He shrugs and rocks back on his feet. "Sorry, but I can't let that happen."

"You are hostile."

"This war is a fixed point in time. I can't let you interfere!" The robot doesn't respond this time, just pulls the weapons out from its hand. "Sorry." He gives us the go-ahead with the Multi-Grade Anti-Oil. Jack and I step up behind several and start dumping the oil through the top of their heads. Most of them are surprised – they were all focusing on the Doctor. The only one that causes any trouble is the one the Doctor was talking to directly, but it's not that difficult for him to convince the clock-man there's something behind him. Regardless of how, all the robots in the room are soon frozen.

"Now what?" Jack asks. "Something about a control panel?"

The Doctor nods. "It'll last about a minute, so start looking. Anything that might control the robots or the factory…"

"Like this?" I ask, holding up a high-tech remote. It's touch-screen, with lots of buttons that haven't been translated yet.

Both of the boys rush over. "Exactly like that!" the Doctor exclaims. Time is up, though, and the first clock-man starts moving again, the oil starting to pour out through its hand.

Jack pushes the door open. "Time to go?" We see the clock-man pick its head up and we hightail it out of there, the Doctor sonic-ing the door behind us.

We sprint through the halls, retracing our steps, pausing only when Jack misses the turn and comes skidding back down the hall. When we finally reach the TARDIS, the Doctor throws the door open. I close it after I walk in and lean against it to catch my breath.

"Where to now?" Jack asks, bending over with his hands on his knees. I can't help but wonder how the only one not gasping for air is the Doctor. Apparently he does a lot of running.

"A week from now. The middle of the battle." Jack and I shoot him this look that must be screaming, "Are you bloody mad?!" Regardless, the sound of the TARDIS fills the air as we dematerialize.


	7. Chapter 7

We end up tucked away behind a Dalek ship after a brief incident in which the TARDIS was nearly blown to bits by lasers in the middle of the battlefield. "That's better," I say after the Doctor frantically moves us out of the battle.

"Oh, yeah, thanks for trusting me!" he replies.

"It's not my fault SOMEONE thinks we need to end up right in the middle of everything!"

"Well, maybe if YOU would be a little more HELPFUL, we wouldn't run into these problems!"

The Doctor and I are having a little stare-down as we shout into each other's faces. Jack has no choice but to step in and force us to opposite sides of the room. "HEY!" he shouts. We both stop, somewhat surprised. "Thank you. Now, if you haven't noticed, we're sort of in the middle of a war that decides the fate of the universe, and it would _really_ help if you would just try to get along for a few hours, okay?" Without waiting for any sort of recognition from us, he continues. "Good. Doctor, you set up the force fields again, and, Rebecca, you can start trying to figure out what _this_ does," he says as he tosses me the mysterious remote. Neither of us move. We're having an unofficial starting contest – whoever sends the most hateful glare wins. "And sorry, Doctor, bus she's right. It kind of was your fault," Jack adds.

"What!" the Doctor says, turning towards Jack and ending the contest. Jack just shrugs and walks away. Maybe this is mean, but I can't help but walk past him on my way to the stairs and whisper, "I win." After one more glare, he, too, does his job and starts fixing the shields.

I let myself drop onto the steps leading up to the platform with a sigh, then start examining the remote. It's flat and small, just about the size of credit card. Everything on the black remote is touchscreen – there isn't one physical button or switch on the hardware. I tap the screen once, and the whole thing lights up. A menu slowly scrolls across the screen with options like "Ships", "Daleks", "Cybermen", and "Mode". The first three seem pretty self-explanatory, so I try the fourth. The "Mode" menu consists of several options: "Battle", "Dormant", and "Normal" are the first ones I see. I contemplate trying them for a moment, but I have a feeling any of those would be bad news. Back at the main menu, I double-tap "Daleks". The next screen is one to let you control the Dalek armies, letting you send the four legions of robots anywhere you need them. I assume the remaining two menus are the same, but Jack interrupts me before I can verify this.

"You almost ready?"

"For what?" I ask, looking up from the device.

"Well, seeing as we've got, oh, an hour before this whole planet is blown to bits, I think it's high time we started trying to stop the war. You need to use the remote to control the robots and end it."

I shrug. "Oh. Okay." I really have no idea what I'm doing, so I start tapping the screen somewhat randomly. I think I was on the verge of setting the robots at war with each other when the Doctor speaks up.

"Wait a minute! Who put you in charge, Jack?"

"Oh, so you don't like the plan? Let me know if you come up with something else."

"Oh, no, the plan's fine. But if anyone's controlling any robots in here, it's me," he says, plucking the remote from my hand.

"Hey!" I exclaim with a half-hearted attempt to grab it back.

As Jack and I glare at the Doctor, he swipes and taps the screen. "What?" he asks, looking up for a moment. "This is what I do. I mess it all up, and then I fix it." Then he's right back to the screen. He sonics the device, puts a finger to his lips to keep us quiet, and starts talking. "Hello, there. Are you in charge, then?"

"Yes," a Dalek voice answers, followed by the same word from a Cyberman. Then they both give their variations of "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, and I'm on strict military business. You need to stop fighting, because I'm in a warehouse on the planet below, and guess what I've got? I've got a great big hole in my wall, and it just happens to be a black hole, and any minute now it's going to suck up every Dalek and every Cyberman for a billion miles. Unless, of course, I stop it. And that's not going to happen until you stop fighting and go your separate ways. Is that clear?"

"We do not fear it," the Cyberman says. Then the Dalek says he doesn't believe the Doctor.

"But that's the thing, see. You don't have to be afraid of a black hole. You don't have to be afraid of anything, really. But I'm willing to bet that neither of you want to see your entire race disappear to be trapped in an inescapable hole for all eternity. And as for whether you actually believe me or not, I really wouldn't think you'd want to take that chance. Because if you refuse to believe me and you stay put, the last thing you'll want is to find that I'm telling the truth. And if you don't believe me, that's going to be the last thing you learn in a long, long time. So what's it going to be?" There was a moment of silence before the Doctor decided to force their hands. "Alright, you asked for it." He started sending all the robots back to the warehouse. At this point, the aliens were too busy fearing for their existence to scan the robots and find them to be, well, robots. Next thing we knew, the soldiers were saying their goodbyes and threatening their revenge on the Doctor.

"Done," he says as he turns the remote off, grinning with a rather smug look on his face. "Where to now?"

"Well," Jack starts, "I better get back to Torchwood. They were hunting down Weevils when I left… Really hope that didn't end too terribly." He starts fiddling with his vortex manipulator. "Doctor, Rebecca," he says as he nods to each of us. "Until next time."

"Until next time," the Doctor replies. And with that, Jack vanishes.

"So," he says, looking at me. "The universe is safe once more."

"And now you'll go somewhere else and do it all again."

He looks at me, puzzled. "You say that like you're not staying."

"Well," I shrug, "I think I'd like to get back home first. I've got a few loose ends to tie up. It's not very nice to just vanish off the grid, now is it?"

"Suppose not," he agrees. We circle the controls again before hearing the familiar sounds of the TARDIS engines as we disappear.


	8. Chapter 8

I step out the doors and we're right where I first saw the Doctor's TARDIS, in the alley. "How long's it been?" I ask.

"Couple of hours," he replies.

I grin, having forgotten how easy it was to go off on trips that lasted days and be home in time for supper. But my smile fades after a new thought pops into my head. "What am I supposed to say?"

"What do you mean?"

"To my friends. What am I supposed to tell them? I don't even look the same!"

"Yeah, about that… Why did you regenerate? I mean, even if a Time Lord uses the watch, they don't regenerate when it's opened. They just remember everything." He pauses, closing his eyes as he tries to sort it out on his own. He looks at me again and I can tell he knows. "Oh. What was it?"

"Cancer. I only had a few weeks… you know how fragile humans are." I give a feeble attempt at a smile, but even though I'm alive and well right now, it's hard to think about how you were dying. A few tears start clouding my eyes, despite every attempt to hold them back. "Never even told them. I didn't tell anyone, really." Taking a deep breath, I weigh my options with tears starting to trickle down my face. "Maybe it's best if I just disappear. They'll all forget about me soon enough."

I'm ready to get back in the TARDIS and leave when the Doctor stops me. "Don't. You'll regret it, I know you will." His eyes tell me everything I need to know. He's lost too many people, left them behind without another word. He's speaking from experience.

That evening, we walk to the library. Sara and Amy are sitting at one of the tables inside – I'm assuming Amy was called over after I failed to show up to work on research. "Go on," the Doctor says.

I enter the library and stop at the table. "Hi, Rebecca sent me – "

"Where is she? She's never even been late for research, much less missed it. She won't even answer her phone! And who are you, anyway?" Sara blurts out.

"I'm… a friend. She's sorry about everything being so sudden, but she sent me to tell you she's travelling."

"What do you mean, _travelling_? She rarely spends money on anything – why would she suddenly blow it all on a trip?" Amy asks.

"It's a long story… A relative left her a lot of money, so she decided to take some time off and travel the world. See what's out there. She isn't sure when she'll be back, but she'll keep in touch. She promises."

Before either one of them comes up with another question, and before I break down in tears and do something really humanly emotional, I turn around and walk out the door. The Doctor's still there, waiting for me. I pause just long enough for him to notice I've returned, then start walking back to the TARDIS. We walk in silence and the Doctor unlocks the door when we get there. I take one more deep breath as I close the doors behind me and lean against them. "Right then. Let's go," I say.

"You sure? 'Cause we could always – "

I shake my head. "I'm fine."

"Okay," the Doctor says. Before I know it, we're off again.

"Where are we going?" I ask, trying to keep my balance during the rough flight.

"Who knows?" he answers, looking more excited than I've ever seen before. I can't help but laugh. Everything's been settled back at home, I'm back where I'm supposed to be, and there's a whole universe to explore.

What could possibly go wrong?


	9. Author's Note

Thanks for reading, guys! This was my first one… not sure where it came from, it just sort of happened. Sorry it took so long to get the last few chapters up. I really hope you didn't mind the way it ended – I was just looking for a way to end it at this point so I could say I had actually finished writing something. Plus I really had no idea where to go with it next.

Like I said, this was my first one, so please review! Sorry it wasn't canon; I might try some later if I get an idea. Again, PLEASE review. Just tell me what you thought. Thanks!


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